


What is dead may never die

by flight815kitsune



Series: only mostly dead [2]
Category: In the Flesh (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Aphasia, Medical Inaccuracies, The Rising (In the Flesh), i'm kind of making up how this treatment center is working this long after the rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:33:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27022837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flight815kitsune/pseuds/flight815kitsune
Summary: He was dead. All evidence pointed to the fact that he was dead.
Series: only mostly dead [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972150
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

He was a perfect patient. That is, once he believed that he was- in fact- a patient. 

There was a period of transition where he hadn’t had much of a sense of self, and a period shortly after during which he was certain that none of this was real. Certain aspects of it, such as the appearance of the other patients and what he could observe of his own presence, still _appeared_ to be a hallucination. This wasn’t one of John’s ridiculous zombie movies. He had suffered a head injury in the fall and now believed himself to be dead. Cotard’s delusion was not a _likely_ outcome, but certainly not _impossible_. Unnerving, of course, but not to the level of the incident at Baskerville. He was dead. All evidence pointed to the fact that he was dead. 

His skin was pale, the beds of his nails were blue, and what he can see of his circulatory system appeared to be black. 

He had picked at a small nick on his arm, and it had oozed india ink. 

He and Mycroft had covered various possibilities in the planning during Moriarty’s final moves, and had discussed at length a number of potential outcomes. An incorrect landing resulting in significant trauma had always been a risk. 

Most of what he seemed to be experiencing was easily attributable to brain damage- it would account for the changes in sensation, the inability to verbalize anything, and the motor deficits when he allowed himself to be prodded and corralled before yet another unfamiliar face. He had suffered trauma when he fell, or perhaps a stroke soon afterward. He could remember a moment of pain after the plan went wrong and a crunch as he had impacted the concrete. As his sense of time was operating sporadically at best, it was entirely possible that some of the other symptoms- his gait, the change to his posture, the shallowness of his breaths- were also the result of healed, healing, or extant damage entirely separate from any cognitive issue. 

He had survived, albeit with injuries. That was good, that could be worked with. 

Of course, that explanation did _not_ account for the others that appeared to be suffering from the same delusion and who appeared to be in possession of injuries which were not conducive to continued existence on this mortal plane. There was the possibility that they were yet another symptom. Perhaps something to do with the part of his brain responsible for recognizing faces. He may be incorrectly interpreting the elements- possibly a form of prosopagnosia? Considering the fact that he recognized one unfortunate young woman as the victim of a poisoning whose homicide he had _personally_ solved, there was a chance that _all_ of the faces present were ones that he believed to be deleted but which his mind had kept some relic files of. The information was simply exposed by the change to his mind palace caused by his fall.

They weren’t being fed? Or at least, he had no memory of eating actual food since before the fall. He remembers blood on his tongue and meat in his teeth, but not in this location. That was… very unlikely to be true. More likely to be related to his other flawed observations.

Actually, he had no memory of consuming _anything_ , even fluids. And there was no IV supplying them. He had observed none of the others, in their admittedly limited interactions, in the process or aftermath of having visibly consumed anything. Most sources place the amount of survivable time without water as a week. _Clearly_ he was missing entire stretches of time.

The realization that all of them were captive, however, was an easy one to make. There were restraints and guards. It took time for him to differentiate between events that had already passed and those which were occurring in the present, but one of the determining factors was the presence of guards. There weren’t _always_ guards while he was like this, he believed that. He vaguely remembered being outside, but of course that didn’t make sense either. He was missing information.

It was not hard to see the difference between the young lady with the taser at her hip and the shambling man who appeared to be missing a large chunk of his sternum. The pattern of the guards appearing normal while the ones they tended to appearing to have come from the backlot of a horror film had not yet been broken. Whatever reason his mind had for assigning these appearances was still entirely up for debate, however.

They gave him a number, not a name, and they didn’t seem to be addressing him directly in any case. Perhaps he was a test subject in an experimental treatment? Something which Mycroft had a hand in which was helping him to regain normal brain function? It was one potential explanation for the medical equipment and the people in lab coats who were not equipped with weapons. Not enough data.

There was a set routine in where they were taking him and when. It was conditioning that made him ready by the door, moving of his own volition at the sound of recorded music over the tinny speakers. He recognized the piece, but he wasn’t sure from _where_ , and that was nearly more worrying than any of the potential hallucinations. It was one thing to doubt his own perceptions and another to doubt his ability to attribute meaning and make connections. Without an outside source of the time, he could not determine the schedule despite his body following it anyway. Not. Enough. Data.

The variety of people all asked questions. The issue was that, although he could recognize the statements and the paper on the table in front of him as _being_ questions, what they were asking was anything but clear. He understood certain words, of course, but the moment they were strung together he lost the meaning. 

Aphasia was not unheard of with head injuries. It was possible that bleeding or a lesion to his brain was the cause of his throat’s refusal to produce any sound related to language. 

They didn’t _explain_ anything, only _asked_. That was an important distinction. They expected him to know everything and respond to it accordingly, which was (unfortunately) currently impossible.

It’s easy to ignore the ones talking at him when he can only catch an isolated word scattered among so much white noise. Easier to stop picking up whatever writing implement had been offered after he breaks the first few. Much easier to just observe the people asking, instead. Some acted like police, others like a doctor in the A & E. They’re all _boring_ , fairly interchangeable, and none of them manage to hold his attention for any real length of time (in his admittedly flawed perception of time).

One older woman, however, does stand out. It may be something in her manner or it may be the result of the injections to the back of his neck, but she catches his attention nonetheless. She asks questions like a concerned school official. That was what she did before this- guidance counselor. Her bag still had a small pin attached to a tote bag full of folders and binders (plastic, red apple and yellow ruler, the sort of inexpensive trinket usually gifted to one by a student), but she had none of the hallmarks of a standard teacher and the vocabulary of a person with a background in psychology. Ergo- guidance counselor. One recently brought out of retirement and not on loan from any specific institution, as the only visible identification is for this facility. 

Each time he is sent to her (and they either send him to the others less frequently or he has no recollection of them for other reasons, as she is the one he grows accustomed to.) he notices some new small detail.

Her carpet is burgundy. Her nails have a clear coat to prevent cracking. She’s been in the sun more often recently.

Two cats, caring for a young grandchild. He doesn’t really listen to her questions, or the way she blathered on between them. They were the same unimportant contextless words over and over again.. 

It was… days, at least (his senses and memory still seemed to be giving him conflicting information, and it was still difficult to establish a timeline. He _still_ couldn’t recall any sort of feeding or hygiene schedule. He wasn’t even sure about the regularity of his visitors with the syringes) before she stops asking and starts _talking_. 

She’s the one who breaks the pattern and, rather than continuing to mindlessly parrot the points on the checklist, asks “I don’t see the point in going through this again today, do you?”

Whatever she sees in his expression seems to be a satisfactory answer. 

“This must be horribly dull, day in and day out-'' she begins, and launches into a very thorough description of the drama she had caught last night, including tangents to explore the backgrounds of the various characters. He doesn’t catch all of it, in all honesty he likely only processes about a tenth of what she’s saying, but there is new information he cannot possibly have been exposed to before- which is more than he can say about his other interactions.

The next meeting, she mentions that her father had died of a heart attack at some point in the past year. The way she speaks of it, though, implies that a heart attack was not an expected cause of death. He was clearly no man of great importance (though the jewelry he gave his daughter certainly had worth) so it was unlikely that any cause of death would have been focused on him in particular, such as an assassination. 

A new hypothesis for why things are the way they are starts to take shape. There must have been some sort of disaster, one which had covered a large enough area for the experience to be considered a universal one and eliminated a sizable amount of the population and, therefore, was a more common cause of death during that timeframe. That would explain the current living situation in what certainly appears to have once been a prison and the lack of knowledge these apparent caregivers had of their apparent patients. 

That seemed plausible. There was a vague fragment which refused to be classified as either memory or dream in which he was wandering past what had once been a barricade complete with barbed wire. Military conflict? Rebellion? Civil War? That would certainly explain the armed guards. Not enough data.

The updates on the plot of one program (some sort of supernatural romance likely targeted to a younger demographic and which ran on Thursday evenings) in the meetings after have the added benefit of helping to mark the passage of the weeks. He actually finds himself able to recall at least some of the plot week to week. It wasn’t important, he could delete it eventually. For now, knowing about the tangled romantic subplots was evidence that his memory was functioning in some capacity. If evidence of improvement in his understanding and retention of information came in the form of knowing about Stephenie stealing Bram from Anne by accusing her of sleeping with the far more seductive Joseph, then so be it. 

Her son-in-law died during whatever happened. She trails off in a tangent about how her grandson misses his father, and about the man’s life. “He always was a brave one, my soldier.”

Something clicks, but his sharp intake of breath goes unnoticed as she gestures and rambles on and on about the ways the child looks like his father.

John. If Mcroft was the one who sent him here, he hadn’t visited. Neither had John. And while he could see Mycroft taking a hands-off approach or observing in a hundred ways in which he would not be seen, John should have made an appearance. John was under no delusions of being untouchable like Mycroft was. John was dead, or he didn’t know.

Neither option is an appealing one.

A new week, a new session, a new episode of her supernatural teenage romance show.

He huffs a breath through his nose at one predictable plot twist (another pregnancy scare? honestly-) and she looks at him with new eyes. 

“You can understand me?”

His attempt at a shrug has too much force in it, awkwardly jarring his head.

She, however, is elated. She has very nice teeth, even and a stark white (dentist in the family?) when contrasted with her lips. (lipstick is not high-quality, but the deep shade paired with her skin tone resembles an image he had once seen in an advertisement so clearly held some sort of fashionable appeal, at least at some point) “But you can’t speak yet?”

His nod is more of a dip of the chin combined with a blink than anything.

Still, she clasps his hand in hers. He can’t feel anything other than the vaguest pressure. He should be able to discern temperature, calluses, the acrylic of her nails, instead there is a dull heavy sort of sensation. It’s similar to noticing the spots where the tongue in your mouth makes contact with your teeth only when your attention is called to it’s existence. “That’s alright. We have all the time in the world to figure out that part.”

He _is_ capable of rolling his eyes, as he is grateful to learn when he attempts to do so.

“Now, now.” The admonishment is a soft one. “A little optimism wouldn’t go amiss.”

After that, he’s forced to attend meetings with other small clusters of people. At least, he _recalls_ meeting with them after that. It is entirely possible that he had met with them before and not retained the information. Despite there being 6 people around the table, one of whom has the telltale ID badge of an employee and a book of sudoku puzzles, only one of them (who, going by the angle of the mark on his neck appears to have died from an improperly tied knot in a session of autoerotic asphyxiation) talks. While at first the content of the man’s speech being yet another victim of whatever processing issue he was currently in possession of seems likely, the puzzled glances of the others in the circle confirm that the man truly _was_ speaking nonsense. And, going by the laughter, he considered himself a comedian. One of the women chuckles good-naturedly with him (husband who expected her to laugh at his jokes in social settings. Clear signs of plastic surgery. Regularly maintained bleach blonde, salon quality with lowlights a shade darker than her own natural color. Unclear cause of death, but she still looked just as much like a corpse as the others seated here), but everyone else seems uncomfortable. 

The next time they meet, the staff member has since abandoned the sudoku in exchange for kakuro. He doesn't lead the group, he doesn't explain anything or even really ask questions. He just has Mr. Autoerotic Asphyxiation blather on and on, and everyone else _lets_ him. They stare at their shoes or into space or occasionally pretend to react to what he's saying, but none of them try to take away his domination of the conversation.

One week, two actual words appear in the syllables, "hooker" and "coke". 

Besides causing him to develop a theory that perhaps hearing and speech deficits were a side effect in former users and causing the other members of the table to glace at one another to confirm they heard it, too, the two words do nothing. Puzzle book group leader doesn't even seem to have noticed.

It is three plot twists, a divorce, and one long lost sibling arc before her mobile goes off. 

She had a **phone**.

A phone which was both _present_ and _functional_. 

As she puts it on silent and goes to place it in her bag, he makes a noise which, thankfully, registers as one of protest. 

His hands are slow and his fingers uncooperative as he makes a grabbing motion not unlike that of a small child asking for sweets. She’s hesitant to hand it over, but a moment of prolonged eye contact has her sighing in resignation. 

The call icon is as tempting as the fruit in the garden of Eden. 

He hovers over it, throat clicking when he swallows. 

No. 

Thankfully, the note-taking application is on the first screen. It would have been inconvenient to try and swipe through everything to find it. He has to type with a single finger to have any form of accuracy. His thumbs had pressed a dozen letters before he had come to that realization. Pecking out letters like John on his laptop. Humiliating. He settles on answering two of the questions he knows had been asked

He stabs out a “Sher)ock Holmes.” His finger pausing too long and activating a symbol had not been worth trying to backspace and retype. Then “Mike” followed by one of Mycroft’s numbers. Hopefully this one would still be active after… whatever it was that had happened had happened. He had chosen “Mike” partially because it was shorter, but the mental image of Mycroft’s displeasure at having to deal with these people calling him such a common name had been too satisfyingly petty to resist.

He hands it back to her and she puzzles over it for a moment before her mouth opens with a soft “Oh.” She smiles, and it’s _incandescent_. “This is you? Sherlock Holmes?” 

He nods.

“And Mike, he’s your emergency contact?”

Another nod. 

“Well, Mister Holmes, let’s see about getting you out of here.”


	2. Chapter 2

By the time his tongue and larynx allowed him to voice even a fraction of his chaotic thoughts he had already formed a dozen theories about what this place was, who his captors were, and if the jolt of medication to the back of his neck was beneficial or detrimental to his situation.

He had nowhere near enough information to work with. 

It was easy to play meek when some of the other residents were drooling onto their shirts. He answered their questions, though he made some answers purposely vague. 

He had been forced to speak the answers for now, a task with all of the effort and appeal of holding the leash for a very large and untrained dog as it lunged after a cat. The entire process was a frustrating one, as the words remained intact within his head and it was only the expression of them that faltered. 

The situation had a clear solution, but they were hesitant to allow him near anything with a keyboard. Understandable, as while _he_ was fairly certain that no damage would come to such devices, they had no such assurances and were clearly operating within a limited budget. The muscles in his hands and arms make the fine motor control of filling out paperwork in his own hand impossible. John’s left hand had had a sporadic tremor from the nerve damage to his shoulder which was nothing compared to this. It was worse than going through withdrawal in an alley in January. They did not, however, encourage him to pursue physical therapy. Others had allegedly recovered control ‘with time’. _How much time_ was, apparently, not information he was to be given. He had to establish a more reliable timeline before he could make even the vaguest guess at a long-term prognosis, however, which meant that this question was added to the many others that were going unanswered.

It was not as if they allowed him a phone or a computer with which to contact the world, anyway. There was nothing outside of this place and the people in it and if it weren’t for the occasional memories of life outside these walls he would be all too likely to think that this was how life had always been. That the entire life he had lived was some attempt by his mind to escape the endless _monotony_ of this place. None of the people present held any particular appeal for anything outside of the mandatory social interactions. He observed them, of course, but he was lacking the means to gather more information than what simply happened to be spoken within earshot. While he had received confirmation that the number he had provided for his ‘emergency contact’ was a working number, they had not yet arranged an acceptable time to meet with Mycroft. As much as he was loathe to interact with his brother like this, there would be so much information to gain from Mycroft. 

A traitorous voice in his head whispers that even all of the information he could glean from a willing Mycroft would be a poor substitute for escaping this prison attempting to pass itself off as a medical facility. 

Of course, he wasn’t lacking in self-awareness. The muscles in his legs were unable to obey in a way that would allow him to entertain the possibility of escape, even the daily trudge out for his mandatory interaction with the others was a perilous affair with the distinct possibility of his face meeting concrete. He would not be running anytime soon. Even if his gait and speech issues were just psychosomatic the odds of him hiding them were low. Plus his appearance, which may or may not match those of the other prisoners/captives/patients here. (One theory was that the appearance was a side effect of the treatments. After all, none of the captors looked like those they were controlling). The apparent changes to his physiology aside, there was a great deal that he was missing. Deleted, perhaps corrupted data. 

It was easy to retreat into his mind palace and become more concerned with old cold cases and the histories he thought he could read on his fellow inmates than to be focused on the multitude of unanswerable questions instead. It was harder to do so in a way which would not be marked down as a step backward in his ‘treatment’. 

*

“I’m afraid this visit will have to remain shorter than I had initially planned, Sherlock. Needs must.”

He had known that he had missing time. It was hard to gauge exactly how much time until he was lead to a cafeteria table that had Mycroft on the opposite side of it. 

“What is that _thing_ on your face.” It took longer than it should have to form the words, but he managed them. There were paused where there shouldn’t be, and it lacked the inflection of a question, but it was more than he’d spoken in days.

“A necessary sacrifice for the benefit of a positive public opinion, brother mine.”

He snorts, and pretends he can't see the relief pass over Mycroft’s features with the action.

“There were some of the opinion that I appeared too… soft. While my skills were undeniable, the beard was a far easier step to influence the public.” 

The beard was _also_ evidence of approximately two years of absence. The facial hair gene was not a good one in their family and the amount of time it would have taken for Mycroft’s to reach this level of fullness would have taken, assuming only minimal grooming that did not remove a great deal of growth, 22 months. And Mycroft’s new facial hair certainly appeared more well-kept than that, which meant that he had been growing it for longer. Assuming that he did not start until after the disaster had occurred moved the amount of time since the fall still further into the past. This did not fit his previous estimate of less than 6 months since he had gone off the roof. Spontaneous recovery from aphasia, when it occurs, is usually within 6 months of injury. Interesting. 

Mycroft is balder, certainly. As though the hair had migrated down his face rather than abandoning him completely. His clothes fit fairly well, no major weight loss or gain in the immediate past. He looked tired, but that was to be expected with such a heavy workload and lack of support from colleagues. 

“It’s hideous.” It’s like pulling teeth to force the word out. 

“And your own appearance is above such comments, I suppose?”

He shrugs before gesturing to the length of his body with a wave of his hand. It was an invitation to play their little game of deductions. He could use an outsider’s perspective. His own interpretations could not be trusted. 

“The last thing your ego needs is my praise at how successfully you’ve preserved yourself.”

It was a refusal to play and it falls flat. The silence drags uncomfortably behind it. Mycroft rises as though to leave. “I truly cannot stay. I will return once I have this situation handled-”

“Mycroft-” and the hesitancy and lower pitch of his own voice makes his brother pause. “Our parents?”

The way Mycroft’s mouth goes tight was confirmation of a very persistent feeling of dread in his gut. 

“You know how father was to those who needed assistance. Mother did not take it well.”

“John?” The question is out of his mouth before he knows it’s there, a stark contrast to the other words he’s spoken today. 

Mycroft’s eyes crinkle and it’s nearly a smile. “You know as well as I do how well your doctor fares in adversity.”

John was fine. John was alive and well and even if he was like this John hadn’t been killed. Not by Moriarty’s snipers, not by some disaster, not by some cruel twist of fate before they could meet again. 

John was alive, and his chest could nearly burst from it. He inhales to ask for more information, but Mycroft shakes his head, eyeing the screen on his phone.

“I know you have questions, Sherlock. I can hardly imagine how frustrating this must be.” He pulls out a few folders. “These are some of the answers, at least the ones I am currently able to provide. 

One of the manilla folders is a medical file. The date and information on it correspond to the day of the fall. Reports listing the actions taken to save his life, and- in plain black ink- Cause of death: Traumatic Aortic Transection. 

According to the papers Mycroft had provided, he was dead. Near-instantaneous unconsciousness followed by death by exsanguination. 

Impossible.

There’s multiple papers in the pile. Scientific analyses, studies, reports. The title on the first is “The Effect of Neurotyptoline on Partially Deceased Syndrome” The report underneath? “Partially Deceased Syndrome: An Analysis of Neural and Cognitive Processes” “Synaptic Transmission in the PDS Population” “Glial Cells and Neurite Growth: A Time-Lapse Investigation of Partially Deceased Syndrome” “A Comparison of PDS-Related Fatalities in Ireland and Japan: Cremation Prevalence Rates and the Rising” “Gunshot Injuries in the United States PDS Population: Maximizing Quality of (Partial) Life”

Some have graphs, some have pictures, all have different explorations of a phenomena wherein those who died came back the following year.

He _was_ dead. Well. Partially. 

It was a valid interpretation of the data. It explained his current physiological state and the appearance of those around him. He cannot recall the last time he felt physical hunger. It made the at-times confusing fragments of memories appearing with the administration of the medication make some manner of sense. 

A mass rising of untreated dead could have had _disastrous_ effects on the population. Certain groups would have been put at risk at a higher rate, of course- children and the elderly, those less able to defend themselves in the event of an attack, first responders and other good samaritans. Countries with more lax weapons policies may have seen reduced fatalities from untreated populations, though the cost of life from interpersonal violence in the chaos that followed would have far exceeded the numbers in countries with stricter gun-control measures. Of course, when it comes to fun and interesting ways to kill each other human beings can show a great amount of creativity. 

He was a PDS sufferer, and that was _fascinating_.


End file.
